The Invisible Woman (Susan "Sue" Richards [née Storm]), who originally could only become invisible, she later developed special force field powers, and these have arguably been her defining ability ever since.

The characters first appeared in "Fantastic Four" vol. 1 #1 (November, 1961), created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The four were connected even before the same Negative Space Wedgie gave them all their powers — Reed and Sue were sweethearts and eventually got married, Johnny is Sue's younger brother, Ben is Reed's best friend since college (previously Reed's buddy from World War II, until Comic-Book Time forced a Retcon) — and are as much a family (if occasionally a dysfunctional one) as a team.

Their number one recurring enemy is Victor von Doom (Doctor Doom to you), who was at college with Reed and Ben and holds an almighty grudge against Reed for "sabotaging" one of his experiments: the experiment actually failed because of Doom's own error, which Reed noticed and tried to warn him about, but Doom's pride will not permit him to accept the truth. Reed may have Doom (narrowly) beat for the title of World's Smartest Man, but Doom is well ahead for the title of World's Vainest (though he's not the one calling himself "Mr. Fantastic"...). It really didn't help that the experiment in question literally blew up in Doom's face, marring his previously flawless good looks. These days he wears an iron mask at all times, usually as part of a full suit of battle armor.

As the first series set in the Marvel Universe proper, it marked the debut of a surprisingly large number of the Verse's most popular concepts and characters. Case in point: the recurring alien races the Skrull, the Kree and the Inhumans all first appeared as adversaries of the Four, the Silver Surfer first appeared as a friend-turned-enemy of the team before ultimately getting his own series, and the iconic Sufficiently Advanced AliensGalactus and the Watcher debuted in the classic stories "The Fantastic Four vs. the Red Ghost" and "The Coming of Galactus", respectively. To this day, the the Watcher regularly appears whenever Marvel needs a narrator, while Doctor Doom and Galactus are popular candidates whenever the writers at Marvel need a villain big and bad enough to unite the heroes for a Crisis Crossover.

The series spun off another book FF, meaning Future Foundation. Originally a temporary replacement for the regular Fantastic Four book, the Foundation is a scientific organization working for the betterment of mankind. The book features Reed and Sue's children, Franklin and Valeria; and notably includes Spider-Man and Doctor Doom as members. With the Marvel NOW relaunch the new volume of the Future Foundation stars Scott Lang, She-Hulk, Medusa and Johnny Storm's current girlfriend, Darla Deering, while the main family is on an intergalactic vacation.

The series ended in 2015 with issue #645. However some characters appeared in other titles separately. In the aftermath of Secret Wars (2015), Johnny Storm appeared in Uncanny Inhumans and Uncanny Avengers and the Thing joined the Guardians of the Galaxy. As for Reed and Sue Richards, they went off with their kids rebuilding The Multiverse, which was destroyed in the lead-up to Secret Wars. In 2017, Johnny and Ben reunited in Marvel 2-in-One and began searching for their missing family, leading into the team finally returning in 2018 after a three-year (real-time) absence.

In 1999, Lee and Kirby's original run was ranked #31 in The Comics Journal's list of the Top 100 Comic Books of the 20th Century, honored alongside the works of such greats as Carl Barks, Al Capp, Charles M. Schulz and Bill Watterson. While not the only mainstream superhero series to make the list, it was the highest ranked of any them.

In the mid-'70s, there was even a radio adaptation, which faithfully represented many key early Lee/Kirby plots, and which is notable for being one of the first acting roles for a just-starting-out Bill Murray (who played the Human Torch).

Their series contain examples of:

Action Girl: Invisible Woman, and there have been two female stand-ins for Ben Grimm: She-Hulk, and Sharon Ventura, who was transformed into a Distaff Counterpart of The Thing. Crystal of the Inhumans also once filled in for Sue. So did Medusa, Crystal's sister.

Action Mom: Invisible Woman, mother of two and still telekinetic butt-kicker supreme.

All of the Other Reindeer: A Marvel staple... which is actually usually averted. The Fantastic Four are one of the more beloved heroes in the Marvel universe. Though on occasion, either thanks to Skrulls, or a Hate Plague, or just the average Marvel citizen, it is played straight.

Alliance of Alternates: The Interdimensional Council of Reeds, led by three versions of Reed Richards with Infinity Gauntlets. Earth-616's Reed quickly discovers that their For Science! attitude clashes with his own morality and sense of family.

Alliterative Name: Reed Richards, Susan Storm. In fact, Stan Lee has commented that he used this to help keep the names straight. Eventually, Sue's name would cease to be alliterative, although the hyphenate Sue Storm-Richards is sometimes used.

Alternate Universe: Many, many of them. The FF have the highest number of canon AU stories. And whenever they needed to be avoided from a crossover; their absence is usually handwaved with: "The FF are away in an alternate dimension..." At one point, it's even revealed that Reed Richards often holds trans dimensional conferences with numerous alternate versions of himself at the same time.

Ambiguously Jewish: Benjamin Jacob Grimm, until it became canon a few years back; and he undertook a second Bar Mitzvah to commemorate the occasion of his 13th Anniversary of turning into The Thing. His very look is loosely inspired by the Jewish folktale of the Golem.

And You Were There: Ben does this at the end of the seminal comic book issue "Fantastic Four Annual 1998".

Anyone Can Die: The focus of the Three storyline. It was Johnny — but of course he got better.

Artifact Title: Membership changes and flash-forwards often show the "Four" in the team's name ends up an artifact title, with various continuities including HERBIE, Kristoff von Doom, She-Hulk, and Franklin and Valeria Richards as official team-members. This was especially noticeable at the end of the "Fantastic Five" Flash Forward series where the team expanded at the end to include eight members.

Author Appeal: The series was brought about, according to one version, by Stan Lee's wife Joan suggesting to him that he write something he'd like to read as opposed to his editor or the readers.

Bachelor Auction: Fantastic Four Volume 3, #50 backup story "In The Eye Of The Beholder".

Reed Richards happens to be not only elastic, but the biggest nerd on Earth.

Ben Grimm is overlooked, but is almost as nerdy and smart as Reed. They don't let Book Dumb bruisers become test pilots and astronauts (in Real Life you have to have at least two Master's degrees or a PhD to be considered for space missions), and apparently Reed found him qualified to fly an experimental spacecraft. He also can follow Reed's Technobabble well enough to translate it into Layman's Terms,

Bad Future: Mark Millar's run revolves around one. Some time in the late 21st century, after most of Earth's heroes were killed off, Earth goes to utter crap. All the powerful and rich run for it, leaving everyone else behind to starve and die.

Berserk Button: They're a family, and harming any of them is a bad idea.

Best of All Possible Worlds: Jonathan Hickman's run shows that while Reed has made many a bad decision, and isn't necessarily the best person in the world, he's a severe step-up from all the other Reed Richards out there, who without a father turned into cold manipulators, willing to do all manner of things in the name of the greater good, and eventually left their families.

Blessed with Suck: The Thing, who has been permanently transformed into a superstrong but hideous rock monster.

Breaking the Fourth Wall: A memorable moment in Issue #10, from a series not known for breaking the fourth wall on a regular basis. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, struggling to write a plot for that issue, reflect on the mistake of sending Doctor Doom into space. Then, almost as if on cue, Doom barges into their office and threatens the pair to call Mr. Fantastic to "discuss a new plot". Then, at that moment, Johnny answers the phone, telling Reed that it is Lee and Kirby, wanting to discuss a new plot, to which Richards questions it, stating that they just discussed working on a plot the previous day.

Broke Episode: Issue #9, and the first 12 issues of their Marvel Knights series. FF # 9 had a bit of Ripped from the Headlines going on, as it was written shortly after the stock market crashed in 1962. Reed lost most of the team's money to bad investments, forcing them to participate in a humiliating and hilarious movie-making scheme put together by Namor.

Butt-Monkey: The Trapster, despite being one of their longest recurring villains, is almost always treated as this. He was once defeated by the Baxter Building's automated defences when the FF were out. The fact that he used to call himself "Paste-Pot Pete" doesn't help.

Casual High Drop: During John Byrne's tenure, he had She-Hulk substitute for Ben Grimm. While fighting against the mask of Doctor Doom (who'd presumably died), she fell from a top-story window of the Baxter Building, and plummeted many stories to the street below. Of course, this won't hurt She-Hulk much; she instead aimed to miss the people and cars to minimize the collateral damage. How thoughtful.

Comic-Book Time: Perhaps more visibly in force here than in any other comic. Franklin was born in 1968, and had yet to reach puberty for many decades of comics despite the fact that he really ought to be older than many, many Marvel Comics characters that are older than him despite having been born decades later. Best reflected in the fact that Kitty Pryde in one issue of Uncanny X-Men mused about offering to babysit Franklin to work off unwitting vandalism to the Fantastic Four's lab (It Makes Sense in Context). Going by her introduction year of 1980, and her stated age at the time of 13, she's actually only one year older than Franklin (to be 13 in 1980 meant she was born in 1967). However, as of Dan Slott's run (which began in 2018), Franklin has finally grown enough to be a teenager.

Creating Life: In Issue #15, Reed had created a primitive, single-celled lifeform that lived for a few seconds. The Mad Thinker's Awesome Android is a Mechanical Lifeform created from Reed's notes.

Susan Richards née-Storm is constantly been sought after by Namor, The Submariner, and several stories have demonstrated that they share a mutual attraction. However, she is faithful to Reed and has never strayed during their relationship. That hasn't kept Namor from trying.

In the "What If?" tale, "What if Invisible Girl married The Submariner", you get Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Sue marries the Submariner and later gives birth to his child. There is this panel◊ which really drives the point home. However, Sue later separates from Namor and then marries Reed, whom she also has a child with.

In the Crisis Crossover event, Secret Wars (2015), Doctor Doom gains nigh-omnipotent power and uses it to fuse what's left of the destroyed multiverse into Battleworld, where he rules as God. While he's at it, though, he takes the opportunity to throw as many Take Thats at Reed Richards as possible, including rewriting history so that he was Sue's husband and the father of Franklin and Valeria instead of Reed. Reed is clearly upset about this when he finds out, but due to what's at stake, he doesn't act on it immediately. However, it should also be noted that we're never informed if Doom's marriage with Sue was intimate or not, and that Reed doesn't consider this Sue the same one he knew, so the trope may be averted in that regard, but Reed was on the verge of tears nonetheless.

Deception Noncompliance: In one issue, Reed Richards is going along seemingly willingly with a Skrull Sue imposter. When he passes by the robot secretary the FF used at the time, he tells her to "tell it to the Marines," which she looks up in an idiom database and discovers it means he's lying.

Deconstruction: The series as a whole, especially in the early days, lampshades and subverted common superhero tropes like secret identities, team unity and family issues, and even a secret base. Instead of a cave or fortress and masks, the team was out and proud. Later writers, like Mark Waid, have made this a purposeful event in the team's creation: Reed made them celebrities to atone for the accident that robbed them of a normal life.

Mark Waid's run also throws a dark mirror on the Reed-Doom relationship. Both have always been shown with varying levels of Not So Different but Waid accentuates it. Reed takes over Latveria and gets as obsessed with the then-dead Victor as Victor gets with him. Overall it's a fairly chilling look at how isolated and driven two intelligent men are, and how defined by each other they have become.

Detachment Combat: The Fantasti-car separates into four smaller vehicles for each of its passengers.

Determinator: The Thing. The Champion declared him Earth's greatest hero, because even if he's not the most powerful, he will not yield.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The FF probably has more moments like this than anyone else in the Marvel Universe, but one of the most notable examples was when Sue killed (or at least disincorporated) a Celestial (thanks to some handy advice from Uatu).

Disproportionate Retribution: Considering that Reed had absolutely nothing to do with Doom's experiment failure or his injuries, Doom's grudge is completely unwarranted in the first place; but the sheer lengths that Doom goes to in his search for vengeance frequently go way beyond 'excessive'. What's amazing is Doctor Doom's quest for revenge is often as petty as it is insanely over the top. For instance, he's actually tried to break up Reed Richards' marriage as often as kill him.

Combining the two, in an Alternate Universe Sue Storm became Madame Hydra (Empress Hydra, to be exact). She rocked a green thigh-cut evening dress, a green choker, opera gloves, high-heeled boots, and a whip.

Ben gets called "Thing" almost all the time. Before too long, the other three members called him "Ben" and "The Thing" was more or less just his call-sign.

For the first two issues, the team just wears street clothes. And yet, Reed is able to make the clothes stretch with his body, and Johnny does not incinerate his clothes whenever he uses his powers. Even after they get uniforms in the third issue (designed and sewn by Sue, of course, as it was the sixties and only women did stuff like that), it's mainly to promote team spirit than to accommodate their powers. During this time, they also operated out of Central City instead of New York City—which is still canon was 616!Reed's hometown.

For the first twenty (or so) issues, the Invisible Girl can't, or at least doesn't, make force-fields. Her only displayed power was invisibility, which in the earliest comics she primarily used to...hide. Just hide, so the bad guys wouldn't get her. It was only starting with the third issue that she started using her power for espionage as well, and even then she tended to be given away by things like dogs barking at her, and was generally the Damsel in Distress for the other three.

For Johnny's power source in creating flame. Occasionally justified by him feeling tired or very hungry after using extremely hot flames. And then there's the part about his body and his powers both needing oxygen to function. There have been times when he's been trapped in airtight spaces, causing him to pass out when his flame powers used up all the oxygen.

The Thing's rocky exterior makes him incredibly heavy, to the point where he has to use an elevator by himself to avoid overcoming the max lift weight and everything meant to accommodate him has to be built very large and reinforced.

Elite Four: The eponymous group are four humans that made a daring venture into space, where exposure to cosmic radiation gave them superpowers. Reed Richards, "Mister Fantastic," is the team leader and also The Smart Guy; Ben Grimm, "The Thing," is The Big Guy; Johnny Storm, "The Human Torch," is the Lovable Rogue / wildcard of the group; and Susan Richards, "The Invisible Woman," used to be The Chick, until John Byrne's run on the series promoted her to The Lancer.

Enemy Mine: Happens a lot with major antagonists for Reed such as with Doctor Doom and Galactus. Notable when Reed's daughter Valeria brokered a deal with Doom. Doom will work with the Future Foundation to bring down a group of amoral alternate Reed Richards. In exchange they would heal his super-intelligence crippling brain damage. Doom upon being restored gathers a summit of the FF's most intelligent enemies to work on strategies to kill the Reeds. At the Foundation's headquarters.

The Frightful Four, with varying line-ups, but almost always including the Wizard as Reed's particular counterpart. Most recent line-ups have also included Hydro-Man as a counterpart to Johnny.

Kl'rt the Super-Skrull has the powers of all four members of the Fantastic Four. Originally purely a villain but has often found himself in Enemy Mine situations with assorted Marvel characters.

The U-Foes have a similar origin, line-up and powers, but are criminals. They have also never fought the Fantastic Four, being primarily Hulk villains. They are probably best known as the guys Volstagg fought at the start of Siege.

Evil-Detecting Baby: In one issue, Doctor Doom walks the streets of New York in civilian clothes (with a less ornate mask replacing his usual one). He passes a baby boy, who begins screaming and crying uncontrollably. Doom apologises to the boy's mother for frightening the child; the mother replies that the baby is blind.

Exact Words: In an early storyline, Mr. Fantastic, Thing, and Torch are sent back in time to retrieve Blackbeard's treasure or Doctor Doom will kill Sue. Mr. Fantastic decides to dupe him, saying technically they promised to bring back the treasure chest, so even if it's a chest filled with chains they've fulfilled their word.

Reed likes doing this. In the second issue of Dan Slott's run, the Griever defeats Reed, Sue, and the Future Foundation and gloats that she thought it would be harder. Reed responds by saying that if the Fantastic Four were fully assembled they would have beaten her. Being a good sport, she agrees to let Reed summon the rest of the team for a rematch. Instead of just beaming in Johnny and Ben, however, Reed brings every past member of the Fantastic Four, including people who were only on the team for a handful of issues like Luke Cage and Ghost Rider. The resulting team contains most of Marvel's heavy hitters (Hulk, She-Hulk, Black Panther, Wolverine, Storm, Spider-Man, etc).

Fakeout Escape: There's a sequence in Fantastic Four #2 where Sue turns invisible when government officials come to check on her, then runs out the doorway during their confusion; this was enough of an Establishing Character Moment that it gets repeated in both the Ultimate and filmed versions.

"Fantastic Voyage" Plot: Fantastic Four #606 had the FF doing this to cure Willie Lumpkin of an inoperable brain tumor.

Finger in a Barrel: When the Fantastic Four first encounter Prince Namor, the Submariner is preparing an invasion of New York to combat "the human filth." At one point, some Atlantian soldiers are preparing a large gun for firing when Ben Grimm stuffs his whole arm down the barrel, causing the weapon to explode. Ben then brings four dazed and unconscious Atlantians to Reed's laboratory, saying, "Hey, Reed: I found ya four volunteers."

Fire/Water Juxtaposition: The Sub-Mariner's rivalry with the first Human Torch carries over into his characterization in this series, where he's a proud, stoic monarch who serves as a frequent dramatic foil to the compassionate, fun-loving daredevil Johnny Storm.

Flaming Emblem: Johnny often creates fire in the shape of the "4" logo, usually as a flare for the rest of the team to come to his aid. Sometimes, he does it on covers and other promotional material as well.

To say nothing of the rivalry between The Thing and The Hulk, which is born of equal parts hatred, admiration, and respect. Whenever they meet they refer to each other almost exclusively as "Grimm" and "Banner."

Game of Nerds: Reed Richards makes the occasional baseball analogy. Heck, Ben had a baseball-nerd moment as well: he once realized he was in a slightly-different parallel universe when he read a newspaper and found that the local sports trivia didn't match the stats he'd carried around in his head.

Genius Bruiser/Gentle Giant: The ever-lovin', blue-eyed Thing, Ben Grimm, although his smarts are usually overshadowed by super-genius Reed. Ben lampshades this as he assembles a cosmic ray device, musing that he's watched Reed long enough to play Mad Scientist himself. There is also the fact that Grimm was a highly qualified test pilot before he became The Thing; no mean feat brain-wise.

The idea of The Thing being simultaneously physically strong, ugly, and smart was seen as revolutionary in comics.

Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Good smoking. Reed and Ben were both smokers for decades in the comics, Reed smoking a dignified pipe, Ben smoking thick cigars. They were both clear heroes and their smoking reflected that (Reed's made him look wise and paternal, Ben's made him look good-natured and friendly). They both were forced to quit when Marvel issued a blanket ban on smoking in its comics.

Invisible Woman should be portrayed as this. She shamed Ben Grimm into piloting the ship during the first issue. She was also told to distract many of the Silver Age male supervillains. After Psycho Man temporarily turned her into Malice she used her knowledge of Reed and Psycho Man's personalities to track him down and take revenge on him. When Dr. Doom stole the power cosmic from the Silver Surfer, she tricked him into flying into outer space when he couldn't. During the Civil War, she spied on Reed. As any real chessmaster/manipulative bastard/guile hero would tell you, the greatest achievements in theses tropes is to make certain that your opponents don't realize you are a social expert.

Valeria Richards is this too, especially when written by Jonathan Hickman. She seems to have inherited her dad's smarts - and her mom's wits.

Johnny generally acts like a teenager on hormonal overdrive, but he's generally portrayed as a skilled mechanic at the very least, and a competent planner at his best.

As for the rest of the team: The Thing is likewise a very intelligent ex-fighter pilot. On his worst days, he's needy, pessimistic, and pushy; on his best, he is braver than Captain America. Sue is the most powerful member of her team and on her best day the Team Mom, but she's got self-esteem issues and doubts Reed's devotion to her and to the family. Most interesting of all is Reed: he's brilliant, he's rich, he's famous, he's got a great family and the name of every other superhero on his rolodex, and he's even easy on the eyes, but every so often he admits his deep guilt over causing the accident that made the Fantastic Four in the first place - even guilt over what happened to Victor Von Doom, even though he didn't have a damn thing to do with it.

Hidden Elf Village: The Fantastic Four discovered Attilan, a hidden city, which was the retreat of the Inhumans, hidden in the Himalayas (they've moved since).

In one story Doctor Doom gloats to an imprisoned Reed Richards about a torture room he designed full of thousands of mirrors arranged in such a way that the myriad reflections are so incomprehensible to the human mind that looking at it without protective goggles can induce a Heroic BSoD. At the end of the story, about five issues later, Doom and Reed's climactic battle leads to Reed chasing Doom into the aforementioned room, where Doom beats the living crap out of Reed and strangles him while screaming about how much he hates him. However, Reed manages to tear off Doom's mask just before he passes out, and the sight of his grotesquely disfigured face reflected at him thousands of times drives Doom completely insane (he gets better).

Fantastic Four #10. Doctor Doom develops a Shrink Ray device with the intent of using it on the Fantastic Four, but he ends up getting shrunk down to nothingness by it.

Ben Grimm, to Franklin and Val. Much more than honorary as Ben is also Franklin's godfather and the closest thing Reed has to family (before Sue and Johnny came into his life). And Ben always refers to Franklin and Valeria as "nephew" and "niece"; it's likely all four have forgotten they're not related by blood.

Valeria also tends to address Doctor Doom as "Uncle Doom", which he appears to actually like.

Spider-Man sometimes takes this role for Franklin. Notably when he consoled Franklin after Johnny Storm's death. In a Video Will he left behind, one of Johnny's reasons for asking Spider-Man to take his place in the team line-up was because he knew Franklin would be thrilled.

Hope Spot: During the early days of the series' run, Ben would periodically revert back to his old human self for a few minutes before turning back into The Thing again. Not only did this give Ben hope that the power of the cosmic rays were weakening on him, but it gave the rest of the four hope it might do the same for their powers.

Ben and Johnny tend to ham it up when they're bickering, particularly Johnny's fire-based pranks, Ben's threats that he hardly ever follows through with, and his endless fire-based insults (match-head, flame-brain, etc.)

IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!

Last-Minute Baby Naming: Franklin went nameless for a while after being born, until he was named after the deceased Franklin Storm.

Last-Name Basis: The Thing seems to be on a permanent last-name basis with Bruce Banner (possibly having to do with his main rival being Bruce's alter-ego, and when he gets sufficiently pissed at Reed he'll start referring to him exclusively as "Richards".

See also Doom, whose cries of "RICHARRDSSSSSSSSSSSS!" are almost as well-known as his talking about himself in the third person.

Layman's Terms: Ben usually dumbs down the complex explanations Reed Richards comes up with for the people around him. When Reed starts speaking too Star-Trek even for him, it's also Ben who normally snaps at him to "Speak English, Stretcho!"

Leave Him to Me: Happened in an old comic, as shown here. Mr. Fantastic tells The Thing to leave Namor to him.

Legend Fades to Myth: In one arc, they come across a town suffering from Decade Inside Second Outside; inside the town the Fantastic Four are considered legendary heroes (even more so than in Earth-616 Real Life) and the inhabitants are quite upset when they find out about what they're really like.

Lightning Bruiser: The Thing is just as agile and well-trained in martial arts as he was before his transformation, lots of people forget that. Woe on them.

To quote Ben himself from an issue of Marvel Knights 4:

Here's a little-known fact people sometimes forget - for someone my size, I can move a lot faster than I should be able to.

Mama Bear: Sue to the rest of the team, especially to Franklin and Valeria.

Master of Disguise: Mr. Fantastic has infrequently used his stretching powers to assume a different face.

Meta Fiction: The Fantastic Four: True Story miniseries involves the four exploring the Ideaverse after everyone becomes inexplicably adverse to fiction. The ideaverse is a metaphysical plane where all fictional characters reside, where inhabitants are shaped by the perceptions of readers and readers are shaped by them once there. The problem turned out to be an author recalling Nightmare enough to recount him as a novel. Thus rendered as a fictional character, he becomes like an invasive species and creates an army of monsters pushing further into older stories corrupting the whole thing inside out. The four are perceived by Dante Alighieri as American comic book superheroes to their surprise.

Monster Modesty: Even though the Thing has been horrified by his monstrous appearance, he often runs around in blue short-pants and nothing else.

Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr. Doom never actually finished his doctorate, but he sounds scarier with a "Doctor" in front of his name. Reed Richards, who finished several doctorates, chooses to go by Mr. Fantastic.

Most Common Superpower: For a time during the mid-90s, the Invisible Woman wore a skimpy costume with a cut-out "4" on her cleavage. This was before writers and editors realized that they didn't have to dress Sue up in a slinky costume to make her sexy — she was already a MILF.

Mr. Exposition: In their early appearances the Inhumans come across as an entire race of these. This is partly because they have to speak for their mute by choice leader Black Bolt, and partly because they would appear Once per Episode as part of a story arc and have to recap everything for casual readers.

Mundane Made Awesome: A recurring joke about the characters is that they'll go into space or another universe for picnics, or for coffee.

Mundane Utility: Given the domestic feel of their comics, this also happens a lot - most obviously, Reed using his stretching powers to use multiple workstations at once.

The Nicknamer: Ben. Some of his nicknames include "Stretcho" for Reed, "Bic-head" and "Matchstick" for Johnny, "Suzie-Q" for Susan, "Jade-Jaws" for Hulk, etc.

Noodle Incident: In the 2018 relaunch, it's idly revealed that Iceman became a member of the Fantastic Four. Though the editor's note says that it's a story for another time, all that's known about it is that it was a spur of the moment thing and that Johnny considers it "non-canon".

No Such Thing as Space Jesus: In one issue, a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Walt Disney goes mad and believes himself a Messiah. To solve the problem of overpopulation he plans to use the Human Torch to reignite the Earth's core thus expanding the landmass. He dies just as he's about to push the big button. Afterwards his assistants claim the idea would never work. Queried why they were doing it, they admit they were programmed to obey him. The point being, they know the messiah stuff is rubbish but they can only do what they're told.

Subverted the second time Galactus attacks Earth. He is preceded by his new herald Air Walker, a very impressive-looking being who just happens to be named Gabriel Lannote Technically, it's a robot duplicate of the real Gabriel Lan, who is deceased by then. and who, as a herald of Galactus, has come to announce the end of the world. Naturally, the human onlookers assume he is the Biblical Gabriel announcing Armageddon and are terrified. Air Walker is then confronted by the Silver Surfer, who makes it plain that he himself does believe in God, and that Air Walker cannot possibly be His agent, because Air Walker is acting like a bullying jerk.

Silver Surfer: "The ultimate power need never be flaunted! You cannot possibly be who you claim!"

Not So Different: Although they're on opposite ends of the good vs. evil thing, both Reed and Doom are insanely intelligent, somewhat condescending, and often only care about completing whatever task at hand will best benefit whatever, tossing aside everything else.

Not Wearing Tights: For the first two issues. They only started wearing them because of fan demand.

The Notable Numeral: The eponymous heroes and their enemies The Frightful Four, headed by the Wizard.

One Extra Member: Not normally but for short periods of time or in alternate universes. This is occasionally lampshaded, such as in the Fantastic Five stories of Marvel Comics 2 which at one point had the team with six official members and a good number of their children (And Ben's ex) as acting members.

The One Who Made It Out: Ben Grimm is a former member of the Yancy Street Gang, and they resent him for forgetting his roots.

Pals with Jesus: All four are friends with Uatu The Watcher, one of the most powerful beings of this universe. Even better: Galactus, a freakin' embodiment of a cosmic force, has said that the Fantastic Four are the only beings in the Universe that he can call his friends. In fact, in one issue we see an older version of Franklin promise Galactus that he'd be with him at the end of the universe. They share a moment floating above the Earth.

Justified Trope via Retcon when it's revealed that their powers were, in fact, based on their personalities, as Reed gave them their powers during a Timey-Wimey Ball.

Especially noticeable with the hot-headed Human Torch and the solid and stubborn Thing.

Also originally Sue was a shy, almost invisible to people woman and Reed had an elastic mind.

In "What if the Fantastic Four had different super powers?" (What If? v1 #6), Johnny became a robot due to his being a skilled mechanic, Ben became a Winged Humanoid with dragon-like wings for his passion about flying (on jets), Sue had elastic powers being a very conciliatory woman and Reed became a bodiless brain because of his peerless intelligence.

Not completely, however. If it weren't for unstable molecules, 3/4 of the Fantastic Four would be running around like this◊.

Averted in issue #9. Johnny mentions Reed patented all his inventions and became incredibly wealthy, which is how he paid for the Baxter Building and his lab space, but lost it all in the stock market crash of 1962.

And then with the return of Johnny about a year later, "Fantastic Four" was relaunched and the team began using the name with redesigned FF uniforms; whilst the "FF" series began focusing on Franklin, Val & the rest of the kids at the Baxter Building.

With Marvel NOW, in "Fantastic Four" the Richards family took an intergalactic vacation for a year, whilst in "FF" Scott Lang, She-Hulk, Medusa and Johnny Storm's most recent girlfriend, Darla Deering, were recruited to serve as the heads of the Future Foundation & the Fantastic Four in the absence of the Richards family.

Runs on Ignorance: In one arc, Reed Richards was helpless against Doctor Doom's magical prowess, so he had to learn magic from Doctor Strange, however he kept trying to analyze it scientifically and logically, making his results less than impressive. He only managed to use his magical skills to defeat Doom once he admitted that he had no idea what he was doing.

Annual #12 sees the Thing fighting an out-of-control robot and crashing into The Gong Show.

Tintin managed to have a cameo in volume 3, issue #1 of the series, drawn by Scott Lobdell and Alan Davis where Reed and Sue (in disguise) meet the reporter during a protest march, where he is addressed as French, but quickly points out: "For the record, I'm Belgian.". Later in the story he is seen again fleeing, while shouting Haddock's catchphrase: "Billions of blistering blue barnacles". [1]

Sixth Ranger: The Fantastic Four has frequently throughout the years have had other heroes fill-in whenever one of the core members were temporarily Put on a Bus. In a few notable instances:

Black Panther and Storm took over Reed and Sue's spots on the team for a brief spell post-Civil War, and this was long after T'Challa formerly bankrolled some of the Four's operations in the past

She-Hulk is one of the most recurring supporting allies the FF has had, first joining to replace a depowered Thing, and later coming on as additional muscle.

Spider-Man's close relationship with the Fantastic Four has had him serve as this multiple times well before being inducted into the group proper as the Future Foundation. He would later lead a modified incarnation of the team (simply referred to as the "New Fantastic Four") comprised of himself, Incredible Hulk, Wolverine and Ghost Rider (Danny Ketch)* Was replaced with Iron Man in a modern-day "What If?" story., which in turn saw some of their successors and counterparts (like X-23, Amadeus Cho, Gwen Stacy and Robbie Reyes) form their own variants for certain occasions.

The Thing gets turned into a human about once every few years, but always gets turned back, usually because he needs to help someone out. It's something of a running gag. Sometimes when it happens he actively tries to regain his powers as he feels useless and naked without them.

In one story arc, Reed tried to remove Ben's mutation and add it to his own elasticity, but Ben refused to let him. "You're you an' I'm me, an' that's the cosmic plan."

Johnny dying a year before the FF's 50th anniversary. Yeaaaah, that'll stick. Then becomes a subversion when instead of simply coming back to life he ends up in the Negative Zone leading a Five-Man Band to overthrow Annihilus and gains control over the Annihilation Wave.Took a Level in Badass indeed.

Story-Breaker Power: Franklin is a major case of having this, which is why he can never be allowed to permanently grow up in-story. He also keeps having his powers nerfed after doing anything sufficiently cool. This is because his full power is well beyond most characters who are considered gods; perhaps the only Earthling who compares to him is Scarlet Witch (who also has her powers reined in by something or other most of the time.)

Stripperiffic: Unusual for a comic series in that the team's main female member only rarely falls under this trope, preferring a modest blue bodysuit identical to the ones Reed and Johnny wear, but it does happen - like when she wore this costume for a few years in the 1990s. The change was widely panned by fans and removed.

Sudden Humility: In one issue, Sue and Johnny swap powers. Sue constantly loses control over her new powers and notes how she constantly "Flames On!" by accident whenever she gets excited or emotional. She's utterly amazed that a Hot-Blooded person like Johnny was able to keep this much power under control, and she gained a newfound respect and appreciation for her brother because of how difficult it was for her to remain in control at all times.

The Bus Came Back: The Richards family and the Future Foundation were absent from the Marvel universe in the three years of publication after Secret Wars (2015). Then came Dan Slott's run.

¡Three Amigos!: Reed, Ben and Sue. Later, during John Byrne's run, also Ben, Johnny and Alicia (carried over into the MC-2 universe with Ben, Johnny and Lyja).

Took a Level in Badass: Susan, once The Chick with the next to useless power of become invisible, to nowadays where she is one of the most powerful superheroes in all of the Marvel Universe, along with the forceful personality guaranteed to mess up even Doctor Doom's day. Oh, and she's got kids. There's a reason why she's the page image for this trope.

True Companions: Spider-Man is one of the most trusted allies and friends of the Four. After the Torch's supposed death, Spidey temporarily became a member of the Future Foundation.

Tyrannicide: Issue #247 has Doctor Doom bring the Fantastic Four to his homeland to show them how Prince Zorba has reduced Latveria to a Crapsack World where its people live in misery and fear. While the Four battle war-class Doombots, Doom seeks out Zorba and confronts him about his tyranny.

The Von Trope Family: Doctor Doom's real name is Victor Von Doom. Reed and Sue's daughter Valeria could also fit here, since in one alternate future she was Doctor Doom's daughter, but Sue was still her mom.

Weirdness Magnet: The Four tend to meet or attract various aliens, interdimensional beings... whether intentional, or by accident.

Wham Episode: Issue 216 opens with the following disclaimer: "Warning: In this incredible issue, you'll find the one word you never thought you'd see in a Marvel comic again!" At the end of the issue, the Fantastic Four (seeking to know who the mysterious alien beings behind the Nuwali and Fortisquains were) locate a defunct Nuwalian heater in the currently frozen-over Savage Land and open it up, finding one word among the machinery: Beyonder. This is the name of a group of powerful aliens that were first mentioned back in issue 63 of the Thing's own Team-Up Series, Marvel Two-In-One. The revelation also inspires most of the Fantastic Four to visit the singular entity of the same name (from Secret Wars and Secret Wars II) a few issues later.

What Have I Become?: Ben Grimm had this come up a lot in the early years, but by this point now he's pretty much over it, although he has his good days and his bad days. The "bad days" that happen to him are usually caused by someone (most of the time a kid or kids) who're not used to seeing him up close get freaked out. Sometimes accompanied with a scream like "Mommy! It's a monster!" or some variation thereof, and he gets reminded of his hideous appearance. The real reason for this, however, is because True Art Is Angsty and writers sometimes want to do wangsty stories centered around him. For long-term fans who've followed FF stories through the years, it's getting a bit old.

What If?: Marvel's What If? comic line does have stories of these kinds about the Fantastic Four, but most interesting is What If? Vol. 2 #11, which told four stories about the team all having the same power. These stories are designated in the Marvel Encyclopedia Vol. 6 as Earth-9031 (all flaming), Earth-9032 (all stretchy), Earth-9033 (all monsters), and Earth-9034 (all with invisibility powers).

What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Susan used to have only invisibility in the early stories until Lee and Kirby realized that it was next to useless compared to the male members' powers. As a result, they gave Susan her force field powers, but it was only later under John Byrne's period that she learned to really make it a kick ass power set, using it with a new aggressiveness in battle. Since then, different writers have her being considered not only the most powerful member of the team, but one of the most powerful heroes, period. To give an example, she's used those forcefields to knock out the Hulk. It's further implied that if Sue didn't adhere to the rule of heroes not killing their enemies she could easily defeat most of her opponents by simply generating force field bubbles in their bodies and/or vital organs and making said force fields expand.

In Enemy Of The State, Wolverine admits she's the only one of the four that scares him. Sue actually demonstrates how dirty she can fight if she wants to, by turning his retinas invisible, thus blinding him, then wrapping force fields around his lungs and threatening to crush them. That Wolvie was under HYDRA's mind-control at the time didn't stop her from subverting the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight to hell and back, and she even hammers this in with something along the lines of: "I don't care who's controlling you, you come into my home, threaten my children, did you think I'd go easy on you?"

The World Is Just Awesome: The overall ethos of the Fantastic Four is that the universe(s), the multi-verse(s) and the many other crazy places visited by the Four was awesome, or at least it is awesome to them. The famous moment when Reed Richards enters the Negative Zone cements this:

Reed Richards: I've done it! I'm drifting into a world of limitless dimensions! It's the Crossroads of Infinity — The junction to everywhere!

Worthy Opponents: Ben Grimm and Incredible Hulk to each other. Banner himself has said that if Hulk ever really cut loose, Ben would probably be the only hero on Earth with even a chance of slowing "ol' Jade-Jaws" down.

You Can't Fight Fate: A theme of Hickman's run. Despite everything Nathaniel and Valeria can think of, the Mad Celestials always end up killing the Fantastic Four. Much of the run is spent with Val trying to find a way to Screw Destiny.

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